Batman should be the new ‘James Bond’

There aren’t many franchises in Hollywood that are as iconic and reach back as far as James Bond does. 007 has been a tent-pole character in Hollywood since the 60’s with many different actors taking the reigns over the years. The question was always “Who will be the next James Bond?” and dream casting characters with our favorite actors has been a staple of the conversation surrounding movie franchises ever since. It has gotten even more popular within the explosion of social media, but it was James Bond who started it all. Unfortunately for white British actors, it just doesn’t seem like James Bond holds the pop culture power he once did. Sure, Spectre the latest Bond film made 200 million dollars, which is a lot of money. But that was 100 million dollars less than its predecessor Skyfall made. Plus, even with fairly large box office numbers, there aren’t a lot of people discussing James Bond on a day-to-day basis.
That’s why it’s time for a new James Bond. Well, not a new person playing James Bond, but a new tent-pole franchise in Hollywood that fans can count on to be consistently rebooted so they can drool over “Who gets to play this character next?”
My pick is Batman. The character has been around for almost as long as James Bond, sure, and we’ve already been dream casting Batman for decades, but he still feels like a more modern creation and a better pick to represent the culture going forward. This is probably because right now the film industry is all superheroes, all the time. So, if we need a “new James Bond” why not go with the most James Bond-like superhero?
Let me show you why the Dark Knight would make the smoothest transition into being the new 007.
A really cool thing is that I found out while doing some light research for this piece? 7 actors have played Batman in movies, and 7 actors have played James Bond in movies! Pretty neat, huh? (Ok actually this isn’t even remotely true. As I’m writing this only 5 actors have portrayed Batman on the big screen, but I wanted the numbers to match so I’m counting Adam West even though he only played the caped crusader on TV. I’m also counting Robert Pattinson even though his Batman movie doesn’t come out until 2021. He’s included just so I can mention how cool it is that Robert Pattinson is going to be Batman). The Universe is wild.
The actors who have portrayed James Bond are:
· Sean Connery
· David Niven
· George Lazenby
· Roger Moore
· Timothy Dalton
· Pierce Brosnan
· Daniel Craig
The actors (that meet my made-up criteria) who have portrayed Batman are:
· Adam West
· Michael Keaton
· Val Kilmer
· George Clooney
· Christian Bale
· Ben Affleck
· Robert Pattinson
We’re not talking about anyone who played Batman before Adam West because they looked like this:

and this:

Anyway, the first glaring similarity in these two lists is that there are 14 dudes with 14 very white dude names, who are all, it turns out, white dudes. If those two combined lists were a food item they would be a fat-free mayo on white bread sandwich. Actually we can do better than that. The most white person food would have to be in part stolen from another culture. If those two lists were a food item they would be a $17 vegan kale taco with raspberry aioli and topped with gold leaf. (Robert Pattinson is the gold leaf).
So maybe our next Batman should divert from the storied history of James Bond and actually cast a person of color. That’d be dope.
When you think about it, Bruce Wayne and James Bond are basically the same dude. Both were orphaned at a young age, come from money, look dapper in a suit, fight crime, and tend to be womanizers. They also both use unique gadgets to do their job. I’m actually convincing myself they are in fact the same guy. The Batman persona is just the result of Bruce Wayne getting much less therapy than James Bond over the years.
These two characters are so similar that its wild there hasn’t been any crossover actors between the two roles. Aside from James Bond needing to be British, any one of the listed actors could play either role fairly well. The closest we came was Adam West, who was offered the role of James Bond but turned it down because he thought Bond should always be played by a Brit. Incredibly silly decision if you ask me. Always say yes when someone asks if you want to get paid a bunch of money to get filmed looking fantastic in a suit. Though, he does look fantastic in this version of the Batsuit, I’m not going to lie:

Though the two are eerily similar, one major difference is that James Bond has no problem killing people, whereas Batman refuses to. At first glance this seems like a healthy choice from Batman, until you realize that he’s been putting people like the Joker in Arkham Asylum for years only for them to breakout and continue murdering people. At a certain point you’ve just got to kill the bad guys. James Bond would’ve had Gotham cleaned up years ago.
I’ve done my best to convince you that Batman is the most natural successor to the James Bond Throne, so let me now try to convince you that it’s ok for Hollywood to recycle its material, sometimes over and over again for 40 years.
I go back and forth on how I feel about reboots, retellings, recycles, sequels, and spinoffs. Maybe all of these reboots of existing IP are a signal of the downfall of cinema. Maybe it won’t ever get better and original content will wane as time passes until the only movies we can see are animated remakes of the live action remakes of Disney classics. Maybe so. But I’ve landed on a less concerning, and much less pretentious opinion of the whole thing. Who cares? At the moment there are plenty of great original movies being made, and plenty of not great remakes. If you don’t want to go see them, don’t! It’s as simple as that.
James Bond and Batman can be different though. They don’t have to only be cash grabs playing on fan service to sell tickets. It’s interesting to see what different actors and directors bring to already existing characters. Tim Burton Batman films are extremely Tim Burton. Christopher Nolan’s Batman films are uniquely his own. Joel Schumacher made a choice to put nipples on the Batsuit… I didn’t say all of the spins on Batman were good ones.
When it comes to actors you have Adam West’s version of Batman which was ridiculous and campy, perfect for the 60’s. Ben Affleck’s portrayal of an older, grizzled, broken down Bruce Wayne was inspired and could’ve been great in the hands of more apt directors/producers. Christian Bale decided to use the “nipple Batsuit” of voices when he donned the cape and still manages to be almost universally regarded as the best of the bunch. Val Kilmer tried.
Full disclosure, I haven’t actually seen that many James Bond films, so it’s hard for me to comment on the differences between the various actors and directors. That being said, Pierce Brosnan, my favorite James Bond, was in a movie where he blows up an ice castle with his Aston Martin. Then there is a Daniel Craig version where he sits naked in a chair that has the seat cut out so his James Bonds hang out the bottom. His captors then proceed to torture him by swinging a rope with a giant knot at the end directly into them. Safe to say there has been plenty of variety in those films over the years.
Now, going forward with Batman, I’m not saying we have to have a new movie every year or anything. We can all get exhausted by even the most interesting of characters (See:The Joker). But I think it’s important and fun for a new actor/director to come in every few years and take a swing at the Dark Knight. I have high hopes for the Robert Pattinson/Matt Reeves movie The Batman coming out in 2021.
It’s time for James Bond to retire and let Batman be the new clay from which great actors and directors create.
…I need to add a postscript here. Phoebe Waller-Bridge is the writer of the next Bond film No Time To Die coming out in 2020. She also happens to be one of the most interesting, funny, and clever writers in all of Hollywood right now. There’s potential for her new Bond film to be transcendent, refreshing the franchise and making everything I just said moot. I’m rooting for her.

